SANTA CRUZ – Thursday, Santa Cruz County residents plagued by the sound of jets braking and accelerating over their homes will receive a change they were promised by the FAA in November 2017, but it won’t alleviate noise levels, an FAA spokesman said.

The Class B airspace — a protected area above the San Francisco International Airport — has been reconfigured to ensure aircraft safety, not to alter flight paths or to ensure pilots can make quieter, gliding descents.

“The purpose of the redesign is to ensure SFO arrival and departure procedures are safely contained within the highly controlled Class B airspace,” the FAA spokesman, who asked not to be named and wrote the Sentinel in an email. “The redesign does not change existing flight paths, and it is not related to the development of any new arrival or departure procedures.”

The change comes nine months after the aviation agency responded to more than 100 recommendations filed by the Select Committee, a group of local officials from Santa Cruz, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, and more than three years after the flight path was moved 3.5 miles east of its historic route over Santa Cruz’ Westside and the San Lorenzo Valley ridgeline, also known as the ‘Big Sur’ route.

An FAA working group met in May to discuss a conceptual version of the Big Sur route that would allow aircraft to “glide down on idle power” over the historic route, which would allow for a quieter descent.

“The group identified several challenges, especially when considering the Select Committee’s nine sub-recommendations,” the spokesman said of the internal meeting. “The FAA will work to find acceptable solutions to the challenges, and expects to provide an update soon to area congressional offices about its efforts.”

Santa Cruz County residents have filed millions of noise complaints with the San Francisco airport since March 2015, when the flight path changed to its current ‘SERFR’ route over Happy Valley, Scotts Valley, Capitola, Soquel and the Summit.

For Eric Rupp, a private pilot living in Soquel and member of the community advocacy group Save Our Skies, the jet noise means “having the quiet disturbed every two to six minutes throughout the day.”

“That garden project that you were looking forward to no longer seems like a restful and relaxing activity because 180 times a day it’s disturbed,” Rupp said.

In May, 55,292 complaints were logged by residents in Capitola, Felton, Soquel, Scotts Valley and Santa Cruz, an 11.8 percent increase from the same period the previous year. The complaints came from 387 complainees, averaging to 142 calls per person per month, or nearly five calls per person, per day.

Santa Cruz County Supervisor John Leopold, who represents the 1st District and served on the Select Committee, said that no other issue has been as pressing to residents in Live Oak, Soquel and the Summit. Leopold likened the near constant stream of jet noise afflicting his constituents to “a water torture.”

“One drop hitting your forehead might not bother you,” Leopold said. “But sitting there and having drops hitting your forehead all day long, every day, day in and day out can drive you crazy.”

Leopold met with representatives from Save Our Skies on Monday to discuss the prospect of joining a roundtable of South Bay communities. Discussions would provide impacted communities regular, face-to-face contact with the FAA, which has been hard to accomplish since the end of the Select Committee, Leopold said.

The roundtable, spearheaded by the Santa Clara Cities Association, would cost the county $25,000. Leopold said he believes it’s well worth the cost.

Rupp agrees. He says that as long as there’s a “large, growing metropolis next door,” Santa Cruz County needs to have a seat at the table. “Without that we stand without a voice,” he said, “and the FAA has shown us that that’s a precarious position.”